Your life. It feels like there is no hope, trapped in a well of darkness, no way out. You pray to make it all go away, if only tomorrow never dawned. The constant ping of pain ricocheting within your soul, torturing your every breath. It’s all you can do, to put one knee in front of the other, crawling down this path of living hell.

Nobody seems to hear, to understand, the screams screeching from your soul. All alone on the stage of life, if only to be heard. Crushed by the weight, drowned out by the volume of culture’s condemnation, sinking their bigoted teeth deep down, piercing your every hope. You’re slowly dying, a song inside, afraid to be born.

Not to mention religion, the Christianity that is forever assaulting you. Hate-bombs exploding. Discrimination, isolation, marginalization, shrapnel-packed spirituality. Vests full of death, waiting to be triggered, disguised as children of Light. Your every step, paralyzed in a mine field of ignorance, arrogance, and evil. Terrorism pimped as Truth.

It’s hell, it’s all hell. And you’ve had enough.

I’m not on the same path as you, but I do know what it’s like. To come to the wall, to the place in my mind, heart, and soul that concludes, this is where it has to end. I can’t take it, I can’t make it, anymore.

I’ve been that close. Looking my wife and my children in the eye. Just a trigger, a pill, an exit door away. That was me.

I am begging you, don’t do it.

Before you take your life, give anymore seriousness to the thought. Before you make your plans, plot your course.

There’s some things you need to know, you have to know, before it’s too late.

You are so Beautiful. You are the smiling gleam of your Creator’s eye.

There’s nothing wrong with you. No sin to manage, no stronghold to overcome, no flaw to repair, no tangle to unweave. The heavens declare, you are the joy of the Father, beautifully and wonderfully made. No if, ands, or buts. You’re not a question waiting for an answer, a disease searching for a cure. You are a statement from God, the period at the end of His sentence… everything He makes is good.

God loves you, completely, thoroughly. Not out of some divine obligation, but out pure, radiant pleasure. Everything about you, His hands have made. You are the intentionality of the Creator. Loaded with sacred purpose and design.

To lose you, would to be to lose Himself.

You, are that beautiful.

Religion Has This Wrong. The problem isn’t you, the problem is us.

The Christian track record is sure.

We are the authors of more confusion, division, and death than any other. Much of church, flat out sucks. Harboring some of the most bigoted, racist, discriminating, judgmental, over-fed people on planet earth. And quite frankly, they like it that way. Hell hath no fiery like an arrogant fundamentalist.

Those people condemning, reclined in their clubs with crosses on top. They’re wrong. Utterly, completely wrong. They are not Jesus, and they are not His heart for you. Close your ears, board up your soul. What they have done with the Bible, those six verses. It’s all wrong. Intentionally or not. Twisting, rewriting what God inspired for good, using it for harm.

Run from it, all of it, emancipate your heart. Don’t let their voice to you, become your voice to you. It is not of God, it’s of pure evil. Spit it out, every last drop.

Religion, has this wrong.

Your Struggle is Real. You didn’t ask for this, you didn’t choose it.

You’re not making this up, looking for a quick fix of attention. This isn’t some drama you’re orchestrating, sucking people in. The pain is real. Your heart is not a fool.

Your plight is genuine, deeply personal, uniquely individual. Those are real scars, fresh from the floggings. Those are real haunts, spinning in your head. Those are real cries, real blood gushing from your eyes. Nothing small about it.

No need to convince, no need to explain, no need to give reason, justification, permission for your pain. Who you are is who you are, where you are is where you are, what you are going through is what you are going. No need to pretend, to amend, to edit for for your audience. Just be you.

There are many who get it, who know it to be true.

The struggle is real, that’s all there is too it.

You are so Loved. There are lovers amidst the haters.

Maybe you didn’t get it, not from the people who should. But there is so, so much love, from people who do.

You are not alone, countless others are walking this out. Day by day, step by step. Ready to journey with you, intertwine their story with you. Curse dark skies with you, wrestle out depression’s claws with you. Stomach rejections’s vomit with you, dine at homophobic tables with you. Beat ignorance’s chest with you, pull back the knife in your hands with you.

A beautiful, strong, elegant, human, cosmos-penetrating hymn of life. Your life.

There is nothing more tragic than to die with your song still inside. For heaven’s sake, stand up, take your place, and frigging sing it. Be who God created you to be, with all abandon, without restraint. For such a time as this, you have been created.

It feels like the end, but this is just the beginning. Set aside everything that holds you back, believe in the beauty of all that you are, see the horizon, filled with promise. For your life is nothing less than the life someone else needs, to live theirs.

There are good people, good churches, good communities. More and more, it’s getting better. Because of you, it gets better.

6 Comments

Thank you Chris. This made me cry. I’ve not been there so I can’t say how it will be received by someone who is in that place. I only know another mom lost her son to suicide, partly or largely because his pastor refused to baptize him. I hope at least one person sees this that needs to see it and it makes a difference. That is my prayer.

With all due respects and please don’t take this personally. I don’t care to hear about Christian or Religious love towards people like me. I don’t care how you feel one bit. Frankly, I’m suspicious because its always easier to ask forgiveness than permission isn’t it? Costs you nothing to say these feckless platitudes doesn’t it? I want to hear about how you and your church organizations are going to be making meaningful amends, reparations and retributions for MORALLY MANDATING TRANSGENDER PEOPLE OUT OF EXISTENCE!!! AND that applies to all LGBT people as a whole. Its going to take the loss of your resources, example MONEY $$$$; this goes for all of societies before meaningful conversations about forgiveness will happen. I don’t give a crap about your love. Show it!

It’s going to have to hurt you financially to cover the losses we’ve endured. Think about liquidating your property and handing it over. However, the typical tactic is to wait for the victimized generation to die off hoping the new generation forgets. By the time it gets around to me those that hurt us will not be around to confront or call upon. I want their heads on pikes!! You have benefited from the conquest narrative of the past, having the hubris to morally exculpate yourself from liability from the future. Look up Janise Raymond:

Wake UP!! There has been a genocide, definition: Intention to eliminate a people.

You have literally made suicide our only real protest. See Leelah Alcorn. Generally folks like me have to deal and manage with micro-aggressions every day; The Chinese Proverb “A death by a thousand cuts.” The tiny slights fit the narrative of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress collectively, for example, the dominant culture created the laws to allow for this “Complete emotional tranquillity’s seldom attainable in this world, and some degree of transient (not permanent; ephemeral) and trivial emotional distress is a part of the price of living among people. The law intervenes only where the distress inflicted is so severe that no reasonable man could be expected to endure it. The intensity and duration of the distress are factors to be considered in determining its severity.” Fletcher v. Western National Life Insurance Co. (1970) 10 Cal.App.3d. 396. However, individual incidence or micro-aggressions seldom rise to the legal threshold to create such a ripe case for jurisprudence, yet do so collectively, yet the laws do not afford you the legal remedy to seek redress from the individual causes, yet the cumulative effect is forgiven as reasonable discrimination. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress; The memorandum of GET-AWAY-WITH-IT!! as an example of moral exculpation.

Right now I’m in therapy, dealing with situational depression that can kill me. I’m not happy about what I have to deal with daily. And anger and rage are not the approved behaviors in society. Wow, so what does that leave us: Suicide as a form of Protest

I don’t want to hear your fucking love letter. I don’t want to hear your feckless platitudes of, “It will get better.” Your solution for me now is to placate me with therapy and psych-medication?? I don’t want to take poison to assuage my daily hurting when the fix was to transition young with healthcare YOU GUYS SHUT DOWN WHEN I NEEDED IT THE MOST!!! I would have been so pretty—I would get the love that I wanted. Now my life is a shit sandwich that I have to deal with daily. I’m going to be a freak for the rest of my life. I wanted to be passable. I wanted to be beautiful for all the advantages it confers—almost impossible at 6’8” Please, remove those elements that cause micro-aggressions—because they are killing me. Or you going to see me dead from psychological deterioration.

Erika, thank you for reading my article and your comments. I am a fan. I understand your feelings and where you are coming from. I only hope, in time, you will see that I am not like, nor coming from the same evil position or posture about which you speak and correctly hate and despise, as I do. I hope in some way, we can keep the conversation going, I would be honored to talk more with you and learn from your experience and perspective. Let me know if you are open to that and how to move forward in that direction.

Thank you for sharing these loving thoughts. A ministry like yours is so appreciated by those of us who have held onto our faith despite the rejection we experience from some religious sources. It’s reassuring to hear a message of love, rather than an assault by the “clobber passages” as you accurately call them.

I’m sorry some of us have been hurt so badly they strike out in anger at your message of love. Your support is very important to LGBT Christians, and very much appreciated.

Rebecca, thank you so much for your encouraging comment! I am so new to all of us this, with so much to learn. I have been deeply saddened at times by some of the negative feedback, statements, and actions towards me and about me that have occurred. Much of it unfair, and unfounded. Yet, I understand and hold no bitterness. I have made honest mistakes along the way, primarily out of not knowing what I needed to know. It’s part of the journey and reality of my ministry. I am pastor who, at the end of the day, loves humans, all humans, and I’m a firm believer in the Grace of God through Jesus. For me, my ministry regarding LGBTQ is an issue of truth. Bottom line, my passion is fueled by the simple conviction, “this is the right thing to do in the face of such evil wrongs committed against, about, and towards LGBTQ people.” I am so grateful for beautiful people like you who see my heart, character, and intent. And, at the end of the day, love me and give me the benefit of the doubt, knowing, at times, we all need the patience of others and their Grace. Love you Rebecca!

An excellent article, Chris! Susan, it is so pathetically sad that a pastor refused to baptize someone because they’re LGBTQI. I mean, murderers on death row get baptized! I would say find a church that is not so judgmental. There is undoubtedly one in your area, though it may take some looking to find. One of the things I was taught to share with suicidal people is that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It is only a few years until a teen becomes an adult and can move away to a friendlier place, maybe to go to school or join the service. What you can do, of course, is tell the teen they’re loved, just as they are. And pray for them!